“How did it do that?” Darnell’s dark eyes slid toward me; there was no answer in his hard gaze. My heart was hammering, my palms were sweating; I couldn’t believe I was about to say what I was going to say. “We should bring it back with us.”
“Are you crazy?” Bret demanded.
I held Darnell’s gaze, not at all eased by the growing admiration for me I saw blooming in his eyes. I didn’t want to touch either one of the dead bodies, but we couldn’t leave Sarah behind, and this was the first opportunity we’d had to be able to study one of these creatures. Dr. Bishop would be pissed if we didn’t seize it.
I glanced between the two broken bodies, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to Sarah. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her. She had been a good person, and now she was gone. Though the thought of touching the creature before me was repugnant, I simply could not touch Sarah.
Bending down I seized hold of the mess before me. I had expected it to be slimy or mushy; I was surprised that it was neither. It was solid beneath my hands, cool, and smooth. There was something about it that it reminded me of silver, hard and cold when cooled, yet liquid and pliable when heated. I was so caught up in that realization that I hadn’t noticed Bret had also grabbed hold of the creature until he nudged me gently.
“Come on Bethy let’s get the hell out of here.”
I swallowed heavily and managed a small nod. Though this creature was nowhere near as large as some of the others I had seen, it was still exceptionally difficult to maneuver through the woods with its bulky weight, flopping tentacle, and insect like legs. My legs burned from exertion as we struggled to slip through the trees as quietly as possible.
Before this war with the aliens I’d been reasonably fit, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to handle hauling this thing through the woods. But then again, there were many things that I wouldn’t have been able to handle before, but could now. Like a gun or scuba gear or even walking over this rough terrain carrying at least a hundred pounds of monster. My legs hurt, but I wasn’t sweating overly much, and my breathing wasn’t labored. Or at least not yet anyway.
We reached the top of a crest, the large boat warehouse we had discovered a week ago came into view. When I had first been rescued by the ragtag group of survivors, they had been holed up in a lobster warehouse, but that had been three housings ago. We didn’t have homes anymore, we couldn’t; we just had buildings that sheltered us until it was time to move on. Time to head into areas that the aliens had already cleared of the Frozen Ones, to move further away from the dangerous zones, though I doubted there were any safe zones out there. Not anymore.
I hated moving further away from the last place I had seen Cade, but I knew location had no meaning in my attempt to find him. For all I knew, he might not even be on this planet anymore, let alone still in the Cape Cod area. It was foolish of me to resent moving further inland, but I couldn’t stop the feeling. It was constantly with me.
I resented being forced out of the only home I had ever known, the only place I had ever known. Even if it never could be home again. I did not kid myself into thinking that I would ever have a home again, that anything would ever be the same, but I wasn’t ready to let it all go either. I was like a stubborn child clinging to my pacifier, unwilling to relinquish it even though it was time. Everything I had ever known was gone, it was time to move on, but I was having a hard time doing so. There was no way to stop what had happened, at least not one that any of us could think of, and to stay still was to die. All we could hope for was to survive every day and to keep hold of the few loved ones we had left. I was more fortunate then most to still have Bret, and my brother and sister. There were others that still had family with them, but not many. Most had no one left. We made our own families now.
I sighed softly as we moved slowly down the hill. The only good thing about all the moving was that Dr. Bishop had to leave behind all of the frozen bodies he’d collected. He still had one, but the roomful of unmoving people had been abandoned in the lobster warehouse. I thought I should feel more guilt over that decision, but I found there was little room for emotion, or compassion, within me anymore. Those things had to be suspended in this new and deadly world, they would eat me alive if I dwelt on them too much.
There had been nothing that we could do for those people; Dr. Bishop had tried everything he could think of to rescue them. To reawaken them from their frozen state. Nothing had worked. I’d disliked leaving them behind, I wasn’t completely dead and hard inside, but if we were to survive losses had to be cut. And I could not dwell on those decisions. Not if I wanted to keep my sanity anyway. We had not happily abandoned the frozen people, we had simply moved on because we’d had to survive.
Survival was the number one concern now. It was what drove us all.
As we approached the warehouse a few people emerged from the shadows. They were holding guns, prepared to defend the people within if necessary. More emerged as it became clear who we were, and what we carried with us. Silence came over the group as we slipped into the darkness of the cavernous building.
Most of the people were asleep, scattered about on makeshift beds. The dim light of lamps flickered over the room, casting shadows over the metal walls. There were no windows within this part of the building so the lights were allowed. There had originally been sixty people within the group; there were only thirty or so left. Some had left to go out on their own, some had wanted to search for family members, or had refused to move on. Others had been killed.
My younger sister, Abby, made her way toward us. She moved swiftly and gracefully through the people sprawled on the floor. Her resemblance to our mother never failed to amaze me, from her long dark hair, to her gleaming dark eyes, and petite stature. Our mother may be gone, but there was no denying that she lived on in Abby.
She was almost to us when she stopped, her eyes widening in horror as her hand flew to her mouth. She fixated on the thing between Bret and I. “What happened!?” she cried.
“Long story,” I muttered, wanting to find some place to put our load down.
“Are you ok?”
I managed a nod, but I knew she didn’t buy it. Who could with what we held between the four of us? “Where’s Bishop?” Bret asked quietly.
“Where else would he be?” Abby retorted.
Bret and I carried the thing toward one of the back rooms. Dr. Bishop set up a laboratory and medical area in every new place that we moved into. His main area of interest had been research; unfortunately with The Freezing I had become his prime target. In the few weeks I had known him I’d been stuck with more needles than in my entire seventeen years. If I’d been a dog I probably would have bit him by now, but I’d actually come to like Bishop, needles and all.
The doctor appeared in the darkened doorway of his newest laboratory area. Even in the dim light I could clearly see the excitement that filled his gaze as he stared at the thing we held. “You’re a strange man,” I informed him. “Where do you want this thing?”
He hurried in behind us, a surprisingly bright spring in his step. He shoved papers off a long counter that had been used for equipment repairs before the aliens, and The Freezing, had left all sense of a normal life nonexistent. “Up here! Up here!” he said excitedly before flitting quickly away.
Bret rolled his eyes and shook his head. I had grown to like the seemingly frantic and discombobulated doctor, but most still found him a little creepy and annoying. Bret also didn’t like the extra attention that Bishop focused on me, even if it was only because I was his favorite pin cushion, and specimen.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I dropped the damn thing on the counter, grateful to be rid of the weight of the hideous creature. I walked over to the sink to wash my hands and arms in the large metal basin. I scrubbed vigorously, using the small scrub brush to clean the blood from under my nails. “This is amazing! Amazing!” Bishop muttered excitedly. “Maybe we can find a live specimen.”
I shot him a dark look
, while Bret gaped at him incredulously. “Count your blessings with this one doc,” I informed him.
Bishop wasn’t listening to me though as he peered closely at the strange creature before him. His grey eyes were narrowed behind his glasses as he bent close to the thing. It appeared that I had been replaced as Bishop’s favorite thing to poke at, for the time being.
“It’s true.” I turned slightly, I hadn’t heard my older brother Aiden approach, but there he was in the doorway.
“Yes, yes,” Bishop said quickly. “We are very lucky. Lucky indeed.”
Aiden’s dark eyes fixated keenly on the creature lying on the counter. He had become the doc’s assistant, eager to explore and learn anything that Bishop had to teach him. Before the aliens arrived a year ago Aiden had wanted to be a doctor, a scientist, or had wanted to work for NASA even. He had wanted to know the secrets the skies held. Unfortunately we knew the answers to those secrets now, and they had not been as wonderful as Aiden, or any of us, had dreamed. After the aliens arrived our education had become more restricted and NASA had been shut down six months after. Aiden may have lost his dreams, but his curiosity had never waned and he was eagerly turning that curiosity and intelligence to research, and medical training, with Bishop.
“Awesome,” Aiden breathed.
I shook my head at my brother as he hurried forward. We were blood, good friends, and I loved him, but he confounded me. Abby must have just woken him as his honey blond hair, so similar to mine, was disheveled and standing on end. His brown eyes were still swollen with sleep but he was very alert. “You wouldn’t think it was so awesome if you had seen what it did to Sarah,” I said softly.
He turned back to me, his face going slack with horror. “Sarah’s dead?”
“Yes.”
Regret flashed across his handsome features, he looked slightly abashed. “What did it do?” Bishop asked quietly and for the first time not with excitement.
It was Bret that filled them in on the awful events as I couldn’t find the words to describe the horror. I didn’t think there were any. I leaned against the wall, staring at my ratty shoes as I fought the urge to vomit. Darnell joined us in the room, his dark eyes were haunted, his full lips clamped tight. I didn’t know where they had placed Sarah until she could be buried, and I didn’t want to know. I had seen enough of the damage that had been done to her.
“Amazing,” Bishop murmured when Bret finished filling him in on the details.
“Stop saying that!” My tone was far sharper than I had intended, but my fear and anger came surging to the forefront. “They’re not amazing. They’re awful Bishop, they’re awful.”
They all stared at me for a long moment. I had been so emotionless lately that any sign of feeling was a surprise to them. Though they seemed stunned, relief flickered over Aiden’s features. “You’re right,” Bishop said softly.
“What do you say we get some sleep and let the science wizards do their thing?” Bret touched my arm gently; the sympathy in his gaze set my teeth on edge.
I nodded my agreement, I was exhausted, bone weary. I needed to get away from here for awhile, needed to get away from that thing. All I wanted was to lie down for a little bit before we had to do it all over again tomorrow. Abby was sitting on a pile of blankets in the corner of the building that we had claimed as our own. The light of the small lamp highlighted the anxiety radiating from her pretty face. Jenna was next to her, curled up against the wall sleeping soundly.
“That thing really is dead, right?” she asked worriedly.
“It’s dead,” Bret confirmed.
I curled up on my thin pile of blankets and tucked an old sweatshirt under my head as a pillow. Facing the wall, I turned my back on the others, unable to look at them. I was afraid they would see the agony and defeat that was slowly crushing my soul. I stared unseeingly at the night as the others settled in around me. I hated nights the most, when I was alone, when I was stuck with just my thoughts and my heartache. When I was trapped with the realization that I may never see Cade again, never touch him, never kiss him, never have the chance to tell him that I loved him too.
I had always held out some hope that I would find him, held out some hope that one day we would be reunited. It was what had kept me going for the past couple of weeks. After what I’d seen today nearly all of that hope was gone. How did we defeat these things, how would I ever get him back from them even if I did miraculously find him alive? They were everywhere, they were far more powerful than us, and now they had revealed that their monsters could even look like us, not just them.
How could I ever get him back?
For the first time I let myself accept the fact that I couldn’t, that I probably wouldn’t. Agony tore through me; I curled up in a tighter ball as I pressed my fist against my mouth. I bit on my knuckles in order to keep my screams and sobs of anguish suppressed. I couldn’t breathe, could barely see, I couldn’t stand the hurt that was consuming me. I wasn’t survive I could survive this bone wrenching agony. Though tears burned my eyes, I did not shed them, they would not fall.
Cade had once told me that he was the only person I trusted enough to fall apart in front of, and he was right. When he’d been with me he’d made me strong enough to allow myself to let go of my tight self control. I’d trusted him enough to let him see my weakness, my cowardice, my fear, my inner self, and he had loved me for it anyway. He had stripped my soul bare, had made me fall in love with him, and he had left me. He’d sacrificed himself for me when I would have preferred that he hadn’t. He’d left me in this hideous world, one that I was tired of, one that I hated. If it wasn’t for my siblings I wasn’t sure I would continue on, that I would keep fighting. There wasn’t much left to fight for.
I hated my thoughts, hated the weakness they revealed about myself. Most people would want to keep fighting, everyone else in this building did. But I was a coward; I was weak, broken, and barely able to breathe throughout the increasingly long days and nights. Everyone around me was a fighter, a survivor. I was proud of them all. That pride did not extend to myself. I would not leave my siblings, but it was a constant battle to go on for them. If something ever happened to them…
No, it couldn’t. It simply couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough to survive that too.
I could only try to survive the loss of Cade now. I would not fall apart, I would not cry. I would not give into my weakness, not now, not ever again. There was no point in crying. I still had Abby, Aiden, Bret, Molly, and as much as Jenna and I didn’t always get along, she was a part of our group. She was a connection to a past life forever lost to us all.
I would not fall apart. I had suffered losses before. I had watched my father die; I had lost my mother. I would endure this, I would continue to breathe, I would continue to walk, and I would continue to eat. I would wake up every day, and I would go to sleep every night, and I would continue to go on living without Cade, even though I was dead inside.
CHAPTER 3
“Did you get any sleep?”
I blinked blearily at Bishop as he stuck a piece of cotton against my skin and turned to grab a band-aid. “Some,” I lied.
I pat the band-aid into place as I slid off the makeshift table. He eyed me carefully, his grey eyes red rimmed behind his glasses. He couldn’t say much to me as it was apparent that he hadn’t gotten any sleep either. Though his lack of sleep was for far different reasons than mine. The creature was still on the counter, splayed out like the specimen it was. Bishop and Aiden had stayed up all night taking samples, dissecting, and studying the monster. I eyed it wearily but didn’t go any closer.
“Why do you keep taking samples of my blood? It hasn’t done you any good yet.”
Bishop shrugged absently as he placed the syringe full of blood into a test tube. “Maybe one day I’ll get access to some real equipment and I’ll be able to run some real tests. Until then, maybe something will come up.”
“Or maybe you’ll discover someone else with a blood
type other than O.”
He gave me a wry smile, but I knew he didn’t believe that. He was set in his belief that my blood held the key to helping the frozen people. Convinced that because my blood type was different than the other survivors that I was somehow unique. Everyone else that had survived The Freezing, or at least the ones Bishop had encountered were all type O, I was not. Bishop was convinced that there was something different about me, convinced that there was some secret in my blood that he had to uncover. I thought he was wrong, but I was willing to give him my blood just in case he wasn’t. If there was some small chance that he wasn’t wrong, then I was going to help in any way I could. There may be no hope for my mom and Cade, but there were other families out there that needed it.
“And if you don’t find the answers?” I asked quietly.
I was immediately sorry I had asked the question. His forehead furrowed in confusion, his soft grey eyes darkened with worry. It was obvious that such a thought had never even occurred to him. Bishop had never once considered the possibility that he would not find the equipment he needed, or the answers he sought. I admired his dogged determination and optimism; I leaned more toward pessimism. I wasn’t sure if I’d always been that way, or if surviving the car accident had changed me. I couldn’t recall the person I’d been before my father’s death, if I had been optimistic or not. I knew I had once been a child, but at the age of nine I became an adult, and I had never gone back to being a kid again.
I didn’t want to remember what I had been like before the accident, the person I had been, but I thought she may have been different. That I may have been different. And I refused to think of those couple of years when I had been real young, when my father had still been alive, and Cade had always been with Aiden and I. Those years when Cade had been my friend and near constant companion, when I had loved him without knowing what love was. It had been such a sweet simple love between us, freely given and returned. Then Cade’s parents had been killed and he had drifted away into a world of hurt and solitude. Retreated from me, and left me, without ever explaining why. I’d been hurt by his actions, but as time moved on and I aged and grew, I had forgotten all about our bond. Until The Freezing had occurred, and we had been thrust back together, and that love had surged to the forefront once more.